For all its pretense and propriety

Society is an overgrown child

Swimming in its immaturity

Blindsided and pruned from

Truth and rationality

Weaving and wearing

A layer of masks

Masking layers more

A tangled web I see

If see at all

When I gaze upon

A blank gaze

Lying innocently

Upon every face

A mirage within mirage

An indiscernible complexity

Where vulnerability

Hides behind a blank slate

And truth behind jaded eyes

Where nurture is missing in action

And nature is killed in due time

Yet I am not sure of anything

Everything is shrouded

In ambiguity

I look at you

As you look at me

We wonder what we see

Though I am fairly certain

Whatever we do

Is never even partially true

And in a crowd

Of instinctive dishonesty

I’d like to be thusly ambiguous too

For when wisdom is scarce

Casting labels, while common,

Is dangerous in itself

And I’d like to escape

These labels and libels

These society concocted lapels

I’d like to escape behind masks

I’d like to escape from the masks

Now I feel I’m being torn apart

Standing before a Frostian fork

Left and right are deviations both

A choice, and I can never turn back

I’m afraid

These are the only choices left

For even if I turn my back on society

And forge me another path

In this labyrinth of life

At every dead-end and crevice

Society, again, is what I’ll find

– Akanksha Gupta